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Februar뷄/Mar뷄h 1988 MAGAZINE No. 15 H ow Makes m by Karen Bussolini artha Yazzie is a young Navajo weaver living in the Canyon de Chelly, in the Chinle region of north- eastern Arizona. Her mother and grandmother were weavers, and Martha learned from them. "I used to lie around and watch what my mom was doing," Martha recalls. "When she was teaching me, I got confused, so I just watched her do it." Martha wove her first rug when she was eight. Today Martha, her husband Stanley, and their four children live in a log house that Stanley built near the rim of the canyon. Her grandfather, parents, brothers, sisters, and their children all live close by. In the summer, the Yazzies move down an ancient, precipitous trail into the canyon to stay cool in their hogan. The sky is very big here, the landscape a composition in red rock-flat rimrock, freestanding spires, sheer canyon walls, petrified sand dunes, dirt-and cool green-blue sagebrush, yellow-flowered rabbitbrush, pinon pine, juniper, and scrub oak. Sunset brings rare color to the sky; s bring sacred lightning, then rainbows. In some places you can see 50 miles away and 1,000 feet down into the canyon. This is the region of Spider Rock, where, according to legend, spiders taught the Spider Woman to weave, and she then taught the Navajo. The landscape makes sense of Navajo rug designs, color, and use of space. Last summer, my husband and I and umm Dr. Robert Hobbs, who was also studying Navajo rugs, renewed our friendship with the Yazzies. We were invited to pitch our tents in the canyon and to live with the family so I could photograph the weaving of a rug. If I had wanted to learn to weave, as opposed to learning about weaving, it might have taken a year. As it was, we stayed a month. 26 er storms Martha has several looms in her house. She always begins a new rug as soon as she finishes one. Weaving goes on between many other daily activities-child care, cooldng, "sings," visits with relatives, water fetching, shopping-and often is dropped for days. Our presence both pressed Martha to weave for concentrated periods of time and relieved some of the pressures of child care and cooldng. Sheep are an inextricable part of daily life. Martha's extended family has a herd of 54 sheep and goats, protected by 6 working dogs. The sheep are mixed breeds of all ldnds and colors. They are tough, rangebred animals, able to forage on this arid land. Day and night, one is aware of their bleating, their feet padding by, their groaning, munChing, belching. For the most part, the fleeces are a source of income, rather than raw material for weaving. Since high-quality commercially spun and cleaned yarn has become available undyed, few weavers take on the timeconsuming and finger-numbing task of spinning all their own yarn, though Martha and her family do spin warp and other specialty yarns. Some fleeces are usually on hand for whoever wants to use them. Sometimes the sheep are eaten. Just as Martha learned to weave by watch- ing her mother and grandmother, so her children hang around the loom watching her weave. Martha frequently works with the baby napping in her lap. Besides being involved in gathering dye plants, dyeing, and child care, Stanley built and rigged the loom. Navajo weaving looks simple, but most of the operations depend on a great deal of manual dexterity, strength, and a finely tuned awareness of yarn tension. Martha's methods and motions seem casual and off- hand, almost playful. But even the simplest operation, such as beating down the weft with a wooden comb, would take a lot of practice for a beginner to master. Her fingers fly back and forth, pulling weft yarn through the shed by picldng between warps, too fast for me to follow. Although I'm good with my hands, I'm all thumbs when Martha tries to teach me. I often ask Martha technical questions, such as, "How do you figure out how many warp threads you need?" Frequently she doesn't understand the question, doesn't understand why I ask it, or declines to answer. An outsider inquiring about a culture's secrets and not being answered can either give up in frustration or learn to look. I soon realize that, as she herself had done, I should just watch, and things would become clear to me. Pattern and color Navajo rugs are made in a number of distinct geometric styles-Ganado, Crystal, Two Grey Hills, Wide Ruins-named for the regions where they originated. Some are piCtorial, showing the landscape, animals, or homestead, or representing yei-be-chai dancers. Like most weavers today, Martha chooses to work in any style that pleases her. Sometimes she consults photos of rugs in books, but then she changes the patterns to suit her taste or the materials at hand, and she always uses her own colors. Enormous variety of hue is available (even unavoidable) with the subtle vegetal dyes. Mart ha and Sta this article are dyed with Some from spun is a recent addition to the Navajo of the yarns are store-bought; same are the family's s desc뷄杦㭨၀s. The loca뷄 Bu voca뷄杦㭨၀ plants and minerals. Threads Magazine heep _ AU the s Sheep, wool, and the loom are enmeshed in Martha 1azzie's life a Navajo Weaver a Rug nley yazzierntwa1e뷄 pattern colo뷄 ry. =? display the rug